N-continuous symbol padding OFDM for sidelobe suppression

N-continuous orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is a modulation technique that has a lower sidelobe than the original OFDM as a result of the continuous connection with its higher-order derivatives between the OFDM symbols. However, N-continuous OFDM requires an iterative algorithm for removing correction symbols from received signals at the receiver. In this paper, a method called N-continuous symbol padding is proposed, which inserts N-continuous OFDM correction symbols only into the guard interval and seamlessly connects each OFDM symbol, thereby suppressing the sidelobes. It has been demonstrated by numerical experiments that the N-continuous symbol padding method provides power spectral density and SER characteristics equal to or better than those of the conventional method, without using an iterative algorithm. This method is particularly effective for a system with a small number of subcarriers.